Electrified Instruments in Bluegrass - The Debate Continues

As many of you already know, there's been much debate about the use of electrified instruments in bluegrass music, particularly electric bass. I personally don't like it; allow me to elaborate.

For me, it's all about the sound. I recently had a discussion with a musician that has been playing music a whole lot longer than I have, and I think this person knows a lot about the business, but we had a disagreement about this topic. Said musician stated, "I don't care what anybody says, there's no difference between plugging an electric bass into an amplifier and putting a mic in front of a stand-up bass, and then plugging into an amp. Same goes for guitar, for that matter."

Well, I disagree - and not just for the sake of disagreeing, but for technical reasons. I guess you could call me a purist of sorts, and some people may even say I'm a musical snob, but I disagree with that as well. There, now you know, I'm just hard to get along with!

There's nothing like an all acoustic group with no microphones, amplifiers or sound equipment of any kind - like at a private jam in your house with a small group of people, or outside a trailer at a bluegrass festival. In these situations, you are hearing the acoustic qualities of the instruments with nothing to color the sound whatsoever. For the rest of this rant, let's make an assumption that when talking about microphones, I am talking about using high quality microphones so there will be no argument about that. In fact, let's just say the mics are as perfect as you can get.

So, here's the deal in my opinion. The biggest difference between using a microphone as opposed to a built-in pickup of some type, is the medium through which the sound vibrations are detected, or picked up. That's where I think the purist views come into play, whether the person realizes the reason or not (and I don't think a lot of them do know or think about the technical reasons).

A microphone picks up sound vibrations that travel through the air from the instrument, just like the sound waves that come out of your mouth when you speak. A pickup is picking up vibrations through another medium, for example, through the wooden bridge on a banjo or guitar. In the case of an electric bass, a varying current is produced in a coil when the string above it is moved. The signal is then amplified. This is not at all like sound waves travelling through the air. In fact, one signal is a varying current directly from the pickup while the other is a sound wave which is then converted to a current by way of the microphone. These two methods have totally different audio properties.

Transducer technology is getting better all the time, and when it gets to the point where you can't tell the difference between a mic and a pickup, I will be on board with "electrifying" the instruments, but until that happens, I will always choose the most acoustic sounding route I can - because it more closely reproduces the actual sound of the instrument in question, and therefore, sounds better (in my opinion). That's the bottom line, I want the sound of the instrument to be as pure as possible.

Now, specifically addressing the use of electric bass in bluegrass, I realize more and more bluegrass bands are travelling this route, much to the detriment of the "bluegrass sound" in my opinion. There may be many reasons for this, but the two prominent ones that I've heard are:

1. travelling with an upright bass is difficult because of the size of the instrument.
2. upright basses are generally quite expensive compared to their electric counterparts.

My response to both of these is the same - tough. Suck it up, Nancy!

To this point, I've never heard an electric bass in a bluegrass band that I liked, and I'm not just saying that to be hard to get along with. If I ever happen across one that sounds good, I'll be the first to let you know. The fact of the matter is, I can tell the difference - and I don't have to physically see the bass to help my decision along; I can hear it!

I saw The Lynn Morris Band a few years ago at Imperial Theatre in Saint John, NB. Marshall Wilborn was playing one of those electric stand-up sticks, and I'll admit, he had it sounding pretty good, but I could still hear a distinct difference in tonal quality. It was definitely the best I've ever heard for an electric bass in bluegrass.

Just recently, I saw James King in Moncton, NB, and boy was I disappointed when I saw and heard the acoustic-electric bass! I couldn't hold back - I think I cried out "what are you doing?" To be sure, I wasn't the only one disappointed - I heard lots of people grumbling about it. It's a shame really, a man that can sing his heart out like James King needs that great acoustic sound to really drive it all home.

Well, apparently some people like the sound of electrified instruments while others do not. Some people like Newgrass more than traditional Bluegrass. Is any of it wrong? I don't suppose so, we just have different tastes. I love starwberries, but I understand you hate them!